Anecdote
In a 2013 study, researchers Kathleen Vohs, Joseph Redden, and Ryan Rahinel found the that a disorderly space can have a positive impact on behaviour. They found that people are more likely to be creative when in a disorderly space than when in an orderly one. They did this through three experiments.
The first experiment measured generosity and healthy choice making. Participants were asked to donate money to a charity and to choose a snack. Those in the order room tended to donate more money and chose an apple over a chocolate bar more often. In the second experiment, participants were asked to find new uses for ping-pong balls. Those that were place in a disorderly space came up with more creative ideas than those in an orderly space. Finally, the third experiment asked participants to choose to adopt a new menu design or stick with the current one. Those in an orderly room opted to stick with the status quo more often.
The authors note that, “disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of traditions, which can produce fresh insights. Orderly environments, in contrast, encourage convention and playing it safe.” It would seem that keeping your space more disorderly might just be the way to enhance your creativity.
Introduction
In this episode, I want to talk about keeping track of your ideas. This, I think, is something that many people struggle with. I’m not very good at it but I’ll share, with you, how I’m keeping track of my ideas for this project.
Body
The truth is that my system probably isn’t the most efficient but it works all right for me. Most of the time, I don’t even like it. I’ve just conceded that that’s how it’s going to be.
My system is a collection of loose pieces of paper, a notebook, and my iPad. For this project, I’m trying to use Noteshelf as a hub for all of my notes. Whatever I write on paper, I’ll scan into a notebook in Noteshelf. For now, it’s working. I like Noteshelf well enough but there are a few features that I wish it had, like page scrolling.
For the next week, I’m going to try to use OneNote. I think that it’s a more robust application that has a few more features that might come in handy. The ability to attach files, create textboxes easily, and scale the workspace are things that I think might help.
When I start scripting my episodes, and I think I should start doing that soon, I’ll use iA Writer, a markdown editor. I write my blog posts in iA Writer and I love it. I tried Microsoft Word’s focus mode but it just wasn’t doing it for me. I love the typewriter feature in iA Writer, which keeps the line you’re working on in the middle of the screen.
For me to do my best thinking, I need to be using a pen and paper. Writing with the Apple Pencil on the iPad for extended periods isn’t comfortable and typing, while fast, doesn’t help me get out my best work. That’s why the little sheets of paper and my notebook are an important part of my toolkit.
What’s Next?
In the next episode, I’m going to look at promoting my work. So far, I think that there have been two views of the blog posts, one listen of the podcast, and one view of the YouTube videos. So, I’m not doing so hot.
Promoting my work only makes sense because I wouldn’t be putting this content out if I didn’t want people to see it.
Reflections
Here are the notes I took when looking at what I put together last week:
- audio recorded unbalanced – favours right channel
- had to the cut the footage
- every time I have to repeat myself, I’m more succinct
- reflections in glasses
- took too long to get to the title sequence
- how do I blend audio?
- transition from introduction to title sequence to body is rough
- need transition
- script for next episode?
- had to scale up title sequence to 230% – why?
- try standing for video?
- manual focus works much better than autofocus
- update profile picture
References
You can listen to the podcast for this series on Anchor by clicking here.
You can watch the vlogs on YouTube by clicking here.
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